Tag Archives: referral program

Cinco de MindField Celebration!!

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Did you know that May 5th is the official birthday of MindField Online Internet Panels? We just turned eight years old! And to celebrate, we have another giveaway opportunity! But first, let’s look at a MindField snapshot…

Today, MindField is honored to have 1.4 million active panelists, and we are pleased to have paid out almost $4,000,000 (four million!) member credits.

Lately, we have made vast improvements to the panelist experience including:

  • The Facebook merge
  • No-limit Amazon cash-out
  • PayPal cash-out
  • LiveNow! Listings of active surveys
  • Annual holiday “Make it Rain” drawings,
  • Live moderator for Facebook and MindfieldLive.com and specialized research community sites,
  • And so much more!

And we are keeping it up! Very soon, we will be expanding our targeting and pre-screening capabilities to make the live user experience even better and hopefully eliminate (to the best of our ability) the disappointment that comes with disqualification for MindField hosted surveys.

New Corporate Partner merge opportunities will include linking your membership and rewards information at the places you shop at everyday with your MindField Online account to increase your experience at both MindField and the merchant you are already purchasing from.  It’s only getting better . . . and better.

So, anyway, you’ve been patient. What’s in it for YOU? Well, after this week-long fiesta, some lucky member is going to win $50 on May 12!

To earn entries, all you have to do is:

  • “Like” this blog post, and
  • “Like” and “Share” the Facebook post (it will be re-posted every day.)
  • And re-tweet (RT) the Twitter post (same deal.)

You can only like the blog once, but with the others, you can enter up to 3 times a day!

Vamos, amigos! Help us celebrate Cinco de MindField, all week long!!

Saving on Groceries!

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Last week, we fished around for some blog ideas from our MindField family. One idea seemed particularly popular: rising food prices.

A big factor in rising food prices is rising gas prices. With diesel fuel at $4.00 a gallon, it just takes more resources to get your food from the field to the table. What can we do about that? In the short term, not much.

So, what can you do to save some money and STILL eat well, without switching to Vienna sausage and Kost Kutter Kanned Kreamed Korn? WebMD has listed 10 tips. Here, as we say, are the bullets:

  1. Buy produce in season. Ever grow a tomato plant? You wait and wait, and then BANG! You have more tomatoes than you can give away. Same deal here. In season, they are priced to move.
  2. Use sales and coupons. You know how you (and by You, I mean Me) mock that lady in the store with her thick binder of coupons? Stop doing that.
  3. Brown-bag it. Ever go to Panera or Atlanta Bread for lunch and, no matter what you order, you spend $9.00? Stinks, right?
  4. Think frozen, canned, or dried. You may not know it, but most of these items are processed at the peak of their freshness and nutritional value.
  5. Save on protein foods. To quote Modern Family, “I AM spontaneous…‘eggs for dinner’ was MY idea!”
  6. Waste not, want not. Did you know that Americans produce over 30 million tons of food waste every year? We are awesome that way!
  7. Go generic. Remember what I said about Kost Kutter Kanned Kreamed Korn? Forget it.
  8. Buy prepackaged only if you need it. That pre-washed Bag o’Salad is convenient, but you’re paying for that convenience.
  9. Buy and cook in bulk. Sam’s? Costco? If you have a big family, it might be worth the $100/year to join.
  10. Plant a garden. And plan on shooting squirrels. I hate how they take one bite of a tomato, ruining it, and then remember that they don’t like tomatoes!

There’s a lot more information at the original article, so check it out! What about you? Any suggestions?

(photo: dreamstime.com)

Topics, Anyone?

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"Come on, Lucky Writing Necktie...inspire me!"

Here at MindFieldLive.com, we post twice a week on topics related to the MindField Online member experience. We also pick up on various consumer-related topics from around the web like saving money, avoiding ripoffs, tax-time tips, etc. and pass them along to you.

Sometimes it’s easier than others for your humble blogger to come up with ideas. So once in a while – that is, we did it once, and it’s been a while – we like to ask if you have any ideas for blog topics.  More consumer stuff? Articles about mobile retail? Saving for retirement? Finding the right daycare? Or maybe questions about MindField Online? Maybe even a question about MindField about something other than qualifying?

So leave a comment below, and give us your thoughts! And have a great weekend!

Financial Compatibility in Marriage?

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Shadow-people have problems just like the rest of us.

How well do you and your spouse sync when it comes to handling money? Do you agree, or agree to disagree – or just plain disagree? Did you and your honey have to come to an understanding when you tied the knot? Did you manage to do it before you got into trouble?

Maybe that’s all in the rear view mirror, but what about your kids? Are they grown and ready to get hitched? Do you worry about them or their prospective mates? Well, you might have good reason to be but, fortunately, there are some steps you can take to avoid disaster.

Even though research suggests that married couples are more likely to accumulate wealth and meet certain financial goals than their single peers, disagreements over money can derail those plans. Before tying the knot, experts recommend that couples have a series of talks about money to prevent conflicts later.   USNews Money

Here are the bullets, but be warned: some of them are not terribly romantic!

  • Know each other’s credit histories. An uncomfortable discussion now avoids surprises later. Trust me, a friend got a big surprise when she learned her new husband had previously failed to pay child support and was having his wages garnisheed FOR THE REST OF TIME.
  • Separate or joint accounts? There are good arguments for either one.
  • Long-term goals. Save for a house or retirement – or party like it’s 1999?
  • Spending styles. More often than not, you will be opposites. But that can be a good thing! You can learn from each other… or just fight a lot.
  • Who does what? Somebody has to take charge of writing the checks, licking the stamps, etc. Thankfully, it’s not me.
  • Dealing with relatives. What happens when your broke sister-in-law’s car breaks down? That could get really hairy if you don’t plan ahead.

Personally, my wife and I get along fine in this area because we pretty much addressed each of these items early on. How about you?

Anyway, it’s a good article, so check it out.

(photo: stefangauciscicluna.com)

The Cost of Easter

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Sorry, the art department took Good Friday off

It’s the big Spring holiday weekend. It’s Good Friday, Passover begins at sundown, and Sunday is Easter. These are serious, revered occasions, but also a time to gather and celebrate:

Easter is also a family celebration — a day to wear Easter dresses and, perhaps, Easter hats, hunt for eggs and welcome spring. It can be expensive. This year, spending a total of $16.8 billion. That’s an average of $145.28 each, up 11 percent from 2011.  Bloomberg News

How do we spend that money?

Candy: Easter is the 2nd-biggest candy holiday behind Halloween. We will eat 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies, 700 million Marshmallow Peeps, and about 16 billion jellybeans this year.

Easter Baskets: Prices range from a couple of bucks at the dollar store, to a $70 (or higher) Longaberger.

Decorating Eggs: Eggs became popular at Easter because eating them was forbidden during Lent. Today, we buy 10 million egg-dyeing kits at $4 to $13 each

The Easter Dinner: We will spend $5.5 billion on food this Easter. 33 million of us will dine out. And, of course, we eat HAM. Um, not for Passover, obviously!

Flowers: Easter and Passover combine to account for the 4th-biggest flower holiday. We will spend about $11 for Easter flowers, or over a billion dollars!

Greeting Cards: We will send 57 million Easter cards and spend about $7 each, or over $800 million.

So that’s the tally, and there’s more at the original article. Now, FORGET the cost, and enjoy your family and your holiday! Happy Easter and Happy Pesach from MindField Online!!

Hitting the Glass Ceiling of Income?

Did you know that, statistically speaking, we hit a “glass ceiling” of income at around age 40? Age 45 for men, 37 for women.  Why is that? What can we do about it?

USNews.com has an article about a recent Payscale.com survey that tracks our earnings across the years:

Click to embiggen. That's a word, right?

As you can see, there’s a steady climb, you hit 37 or 45, and then it stays flat for the rest of your career. Why is that? The article has a few suggestions. For one thing, when you take a job, they give you a list of responsibilities and a salary range. The longer you stay at the same job, doing the same things, the closer you get to the top of the range.

What to do about it? It’s no big secret… take classes, get more training, take on extra responsibilities, angle for that promotion, use your skills to do consulting work on the side, get paid to do surveys online from MindField, etc. None of this is as easy as it sounds (except MindField Online) but the solutions are out there.

How about you? Are you stalling out? Have you already? What did you do about it? Seriously, if you have figured it out, let ME know! Anyway, there is a lot more at the original article, so check it out!

Never Retire?

Retirement stirs up a range of images and emotions. Some can’t wait to punch the clock for the last time. Others dread being shuffled out the door. Some fear they can’t afford to retire. But a new article asks: why do we have to retire at all?

Retirement is, quite frankly, often a default choice that we’ve been brainwashed into accepting. Saying that it’s time to retire becomes less and less relevant with each passing year. Not only are we living longer, but the quality of our lives in older age can also improve. Physically taxing jobs are disappearing. Knowledge jobs can be done quite well by older people.  USNews.com

Says the article:

  • There is no physical reason to retire.
  • Working can support healthy better physical and mental aging.
  • Challenging, meaningful work boosts well being and happiness.
  • A chance to share experiences and mentor younger workers.
  • Bottom line: shorter retirement means less chance of outliving your money.

Demographically speaking, we are getting older, and there will be fewer younger workers to replace us. If you want to stick around, you should have more opportunities to do it. So, if the old bones haven’t given out yet, and you don’t WANT to retire, staying on the job could have a lot of benefits! What do YOU think of non-retirement retirement?  Read the article!

Brand Nostalgia is a Thing Now

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In recent years, there has been renewed interest around the world in branding that evokes nostalgia. There are probably hundreds of long-gone or hard-to-find brands, products and businesses that trigger happy memories and remind us of “back in the day.”    Mainstreet.com

Some examples?

  • Woolworth’s: Died in 1997. Are you old enough to remember eating at the Woolworth lunch counter? Sure you want to admit that?
  • McCall’s Magazine: 135 years as a ladies publishing institution until Rosie O’Donnell drove it off a cliff in 2005.
  • Tab Diet Cola: Launched in 1963 to tremendous success. Then in the early 80’s, the saccharin cancer scare (later debunked) hurt sales, and Coca-Cola concentrated on launching Diet Coke. Tab is still around but really hard to find. There is a fan site that can help, though.
  • Pan Am Airlines: Gone for over 20 years now, Pan Am practically invented “classic” air travel. The jumbo jet, computerized reservations, and serving meals (now known as a bag of peanuts.) Given what an unbearable pain in the butt it is to fly these days, this particular bit of nostalgia is easy to understand!

So, the moral here is that whether they go out of business, or shrink to insignificance, these brands never truly die. Nostalgia keeps them alive in our consciousness. And sometimes that can lead to rebirth. For instance…

Amiga PC’s: Launched in ’85 and eventually driven out by Microsoft and Apple. But geeks loved ‘em so much there are still a half-million in use. Some super nerds have even started a company to produce brand new look-alike machines with all new software!

So, which brands do you remember? Which would you like to see reborn? There’s plenty more in the original article!

Helpful Tips to Avoid an Audit

It’s a word that causes much anxiety this time of year: AUDIT, as in IRS. I found an article that helps explain who gets audited, why, how to avoid it and what to do if it happens. Here are some highlights:

Most audited tax returns are selected for review either because the filer is part of a target group or because a computer program selects the return. The computer system selects many returns randomly, but there are red flags that will draw the Internal Revenue Service’s attention.            MSN Money

So, what are some red flags the IRS looks for?

  1. Math mistakes: usually spotted by the computer, a human checks it, and sometimes they let it slide. But ya nevah know, so check your math, Einstein!
  2. Mismatched interest & dividend reporting: Whoops! If the amounts reported in supporting documents don’t match the amounts on your return, you will hear about it!
  3. You’re on the IRS hit list: Too much cash income? Small business owner? Self employed?
  4. You have a big mouth: Going on Facebook and yakking about the big scam-ola you pulled on Uncle Sam? Not good.
  5. You’re exceptional: IRS computers can actually predict which returns are most likely to generate revenue from an audit, i.e. which ones are worth their time. Any big weird deductions, too much charity giving, etc. and you are likely to stick out.
  6. You have the wrong preparer: I knew one with papers stacked to the ceiling – you know, other people’s returns lying out in the open. Also, she had a huge parrot, which is weird.

So, what do you do if your number is pulled? Well, you read the rest of the article!

Planning Your STAYcation?

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Yesterday we did a fun little exercise; asking what you are paying for gas. We had over 160 responses, which was our biggest turnout ever on Facebook. THANKS! In the end, I believe the “winner” was $4.75/gal in East Los Angeles. So, um, congrats…?

With prices like that (and heading higher) and Spring Break around the corner, an old family standby is back: the Staycation. Basically, it’s where you find interesting things to do in your town or within a couple hours from home.

I found an old Consumer Reports article online. It’s from 2009 but I figured hey, it’s still the same recession! Here are some ideas:

  • Behind-the-scenes tours: Police and fire stations, movie theaters, TV Stations, etc.
  • Museums, observatories, planetariums
  • Scenic train rides
  • Water parks
  • Zoos and aquariums
  • Sporting events (as well as stadium tours)
  • Camping (hiking, biking, wilderness viewing areas, state parks)
  • Regional amusement parks
  • City festivals
  • Family fun centers (with bowling, miniature golf, go karts, laser tag, etc.)
  • Community theater and touring Broadway productions
  • Historic home tours
  • Concerts
  • In-town Bed and Breakfasts

Depending on where you live, your mileage may vary when it comes to finding local fun. But if you have more time than money (and there’s a lot of that going around) you may find excitement at your doorstep. Good luck! Here is that article again.